The Price of a Pair of Shoes

 An American working man’s story as told to the author

These shoes. Whence all the scratches, tears, wrinkles, grime and rundown appearance?  I came up in a time when good shoes were hard to come by and were to be treated with care and respect in hopes that one could maximize the mileage from them. “Keep ‘em polished, son — maybe impress somebody enough to get a good job.” Shoes definitely spoke in former days about the wearer’s quality — “good upbringin’, personal pride” and all that.  But things happen along the way.

Take that old supporting chair, for instance.  It sits as a bedraggled, faded and sweat-stained pedestal, mute testimony to the years shared with those shoes.  There’s a back story, and I know it well … all too well. The knowin’ quiets many of my questions as I think about the shoes, the chair, and the implications softly spoken, and sometimes wept, by that scarred, stained leather and the hours of labor put in – and risks taken – by one man’s feet on an assembly line.

These shoes, and the chair that supports them, bear a common-but-remarkable and oft-unnoticed story of the so-called “blue collar worker” in America.  Cut by cut, step by step, drop by sweaty drop.

I can just hear him, the man who wore these shoes for twenty-five years, arrivin’ home still sweaty and grimy at the end of a late-night swelter of a summer shift – or the bitter cold of winter – after drivin’ the fifteen or so sleepy miles down that dark, all-but-deserted two-lane Highway 45. “Clump, clump” the shoes numbly protest as he takes the wooden steps, unlocks the door to the trailer, and sits down in the dim light in his chair – this chair – emits a deep but almost-silent sigh, then wearily stoops to pull off these shoes. “My feet are so tired they could cry.”  He blinks back a tear and quickly glances over his shoulder, half-embarrassed and feelin’ like he weakened though he knows nobody’s awake and watchin’.  Leanin’ gingerly back in the old chair, he stretches legs and wiggles toes, still sweaty in heavy cotton socks, and takes stock. “Man, shore glad I have these steel-toed shoes! That part that fell off the line would’ve cut off some toes – and durned-near did anyhow!”  Fresh cuts in the shoe-leather and bruised toes silently confirm.

Mind and body return to the present: “Do I eat somethin’ first? Take a shower first, then eat? Or just pull off my dirty work clothes and climb into bed?  I’m wore out, so tired I cain’t see straight.”  The pull of bed and rest are irresistible.

Six hours of rest pass quickly, then yesterday’s re-run begins again with feedin’ the few animals kept in a small patch of pasture behind the trailer and openin’ yesterday’s mail to add to the stack of bills to be paid. There’s a bowl of cereal with fresh milk and a cinnamon roll waitin’ for his silent daughter when she shambles from her bedroom with school books in arm.  As he pours a mug of steamin’ black coffee from the old percolator, he asks how her special-ed classes are goin’ and gets no answers, only shrugs. The school bus pulls up, and out the door she dashes with sudden energy. He’s left alone to ponder.

Cold sandwich, a glass of milk and a couple of cookies for lunch precede a dozin’ nap as he tries to watch the noon news with its daily stories of continuin’ high unemployment and climbin’ national debt. Then he’s back in the old truck and off up the highway for his shift at the plant. A note is left for his daughter, “See you tonight, hon.  Call your mom and say hello.”

I know for a fact that these shoes are owned by a man – a smart but simple, unsophisticated man with simple needs. A member of the backbone of the American workforce.  Finishin’ high school with a talent for mechanics and a set of trade skills, he got married and spent twenty-five years doin’ his job well, pride of quality and dedication intact, on an American assembly line. Tryin’ to make a way for his family.  Any number of circumstances foreclosed college or advancement beyond crew lead.  And there were some losses along the way.  But that’s natural, isn’t it?

Then one day as he sat in the plant break room eatin’ another cold sandwich from his black lunchbox, he and a thousand-or-so fellow employees were called from their places and told their plant would be closed and their jobs shipped to a place near Saltillo in northeastern Mexico.  “Lower wages, less overhead for the company.”  As he listened to the speech, a set of burnin’, practical questions assaulted his mind like incomin’ fire from an all-out air attack. “Bills to pay. Did my union help me by constantly pushin’ for higher wages? [While they constantly pushed for higher dues from me?]  With my high-school education, I assumed the leaders were smarter than me, knew what they were doin’, cared about me.  Did they?  How’d they let all these jobs go south across the border, while at the same time, hundreds of thousands are crossin’ the river into our country and takin’ even more of our  jobs for lesser wages?”

Turmoil rose up in the pit of his stomach like a churnin’ tide. He looked down at his feet. “I wonder who’ll fill these beat-up, wore-out old shoes of mine?”

When he got home from work that night and sat down in the old chair, he unlaced those shoes for the last time and sat there lookin’ at ‘em between his tired feet, knucklin’ under toes with feet arched, then fannin’ ‘em out as if to let ‘em breathe. Lookin’ at those old shoes as though they were twenty-five years away, old friends and ghosts rolled into one package. Pickin’ ‘em up with one hand, he slowly rubbed the leather with his rough, shopworn hands, rememberin’ by touch every cut, nibble and tear in the rugged leather. No patina here.  Just scars and a tale wrought in leather, rubber and steel, blood, sweat and tears.  Settin’ ‘em on the old chair, he snapped a photo for remembrance.

Carpe diem. Vita brevis.

© 2012 by Michael E. Stubblefield.  All rights to my original work reserved.  Photo © 2012 by Dwayne Eacret, published by permission.

Cheater!

“Cheater!” she yelled, but I just kept going.

“Ignore the flak,” I thought to myself, “this is no shortcut or violation of rules.”  So I continued my steady pace down the steps of the ‘down’ escalator, even though it was moving ahead at its own plodding pace.  Careful not to bump other riders on my escalator that ran in the same direction parallel to its fuller partner in JFK International Airport in New York City, I was cruising faster than other riders precisely because I was walking.  I was running late, needed to reach my flight at an outlying gate — the last flight to Seattle for the evening.  Guess my hurry offended a female rider on the adjoining escalator.

As I turned briefly to look at her glaring at me, I noted that she was young (probably late twenties) and carrying only a handbag slung over her shoulder.  Best I could tell, she was not disabled in any way and could have walked, too. But for some unknown reason, she chose to stand her ground and yell at me.  Oh, well.

As I reached the bottom of the escalator and stepped off, I hurriedly covered the distance to a second down escalator that dumped me off just before a turn, after which one of three moving walkways, each in succession, came into view and would take me nearer my gate faster than I could walk on “solid ground.”  Marked with signs that said to move to the right to stand, to the left to walk, the walkways were there for all.  I moved to the left and continued my brisk pace forward, passing several riders in the process without bumping or being rude to anyone.  On the second of the three motorized walkways, another woman chose to yell “cheater!” at me after I passed.

Now my curiosity was triggered. “What the heck is that about?” I asked myself as the analytical corner of my brain started searching for answers at this second accusation.  One heckling remark could go unanswered, but two in a short time required an  answer.  After all, if I was offending someone — two someones, in this instance — I needed to know why in order to avoid further offense.  So the analysis began:

• I’m in New York City, so perhaps it’s nothing more than high-spirited and confrontational New Yorkers.
• On the other hand,  maybe there’s an unwritten code here that I’m unaware of.  What could it be?  Nothing obvious; no signs that said one must stand still on escalators and motorized walkways.  Matter of fact, signs on walkways clearly anticipated the opposite, as already mentioned.
• These were comparatively young women yelling at me, neither of whom I’d touched, hit on, or compromised in any other known way, nor had I impeded their progress or threatened their spot in some unknown line.  Am I missing something?
• If I had been running up a static set of stairs, would they have yelled at me because they were only walking?  Wasn’t what I had just done analogous to using the left-hand passing lane on a highway, passing in a legal manner?
• Was the heckling a result of some weird distortion of egalitarianism?  That we must all be equal, so no one can go faster than anyone else on any moving conveyance? If so, this is the airport equivalent of “dumbing down” the classroom by holding back the quicker students to the pace of the dullest.
• In a corollary vein, was the heckling a result of some ostensibly-liberal (but quite the opposite) outlook that dictates that one must never “take advantage” of others in any way?  And was I taking advantage of others by simply walking, using my legs to cover ground at a faster clip than they could cover by standing still and letting the equipment do the work?  Such a conclusion would mean that no one could walk faster than the slowest walker on a public sidewalk.
• Was I somehow not being “green”?  That would be a far-fetched conclusion, since I was not enlarging my carbon footprint and was the only one exponentially expanding efficiency by using my own muscles.

I reached no firm conclusion in my mental queries.  My faster progress had not hurt anyone, delayed anyone, or consumed “more than my fair share” of the world’s space or energy or resources, nor had it profited at the expense of others. Yet it had offended at least two for reasons unstated and unknown.

I mark it up to insanity, some distorted view born in the Political Correctness maze, some weird moon cycle, or … mere heckling for the helluvit.

Can you, my readers, enlighten me?

Carpe diem. Vita brevis.

© January 21, 2012, by Michael E. Stubblefield.  All rights reserved.

German Engineering Superiority: Really?

A Humorous Look at Self-Awarded ‘Saxon Superiority’

In the world of pop culture there’s an apparent, if unspoken, belief that German automotive products are superior to those of any other nation. If you don’ t believe it, just look at the numbers of Volkswagens, BMWs, and Mercedes-Benz cars on the road.  Long touted for their superior engineering skills (überlegenen deutschen Maschinenbau), the Saxons have, with great audacity and consistency, maximized and marketed that image to the gullible masses for over six decades.  And judging by the “entry fees” on German cars, the profit margins surely have been equally heartening to the perps, who have, no doubt, laughed up their corporate sleeves all the way to das Deutsch Bank.

Who knows the seminal point of this marketing myth? Perhaps it inadvertently arose from Hitler’s almost-successful (but grossly evil) “precision” at engineering a massive takeover of the western world and “purifying” it to his sick expectations.  His tanks, armies and generals claimed, as did the German nation in general, to be without peer — at least until they met the Russians on the cold plains outside Moscow and the Allies on the beaches of Normandy and the hedgerows of France, Belgium and Holland.

But it’s time to turn from that sick chapter in human history and debunk the myth of “superior German engineering.”  Bare minimum, the term should at least be converted to the more precise description of “superior marketing hype.” Start with the moniker “Volkswagen” – “the peoples’ auto.”  That’s a folksy, encouraging name with a trustworthy ring to it, arguably much moreso than “Touareg” or “Tiguan,” a couple of VW’s current models.  VW has also been described in fairly recent ads as simply “Driven.”  I owned a Volkswagen in the ‘60s and found that it was driven, … far too often, to the shop for required mechanical repairs.  Here are a couple of vintage ads from that time:

Notice the manufacturer’s clever descriptions, … with both of which I wholeheartedly agree:  “Lemon” and “Volkswagen doesn’t do it again.” But I inserted no personal opinion in either of those ads – just removed a bit of text beneath the word “Lemon” in the first one so that we could focus on the operative, one-word descriptive assigned by the manufacturer.  Apt, in my opinion.  That VW was a “lemon” because it required (as in, specified in the owner’s manual) that the engine’s four valves be adjusted every 3,000 miles – a job not to be lightly tackled by the average car owner under his shade tree, especially in winter. Off to the shop we go, where mechanics trained by German engineers often could NOT, in my practical experience, make accurate valve adjustments, even with proper German tools. Hello burned valves!  Hello pricey little valve job!  Hello, parts profits for VW!  I’ve never looked back at the Volkswagen line since then.

Next, let’s visit the vaunted BMW – the “Ultimate Driving Machine,” I believe it has affectionately been called. It was also ballyhooed in older ads as “sedan of the year for five years in a row.”  A comparison with my experience is, however, instructive.  I own a 1997 Ford Expedition with about 180,000 miles on it. Bought it as the second owner when it had 24,000 on the odometer and was two years out of the chute.  Since, I’ve had the spark plugs replaced once, bought tires every 50,000 miles just to keep good rubber on the road, and have had the PCV valve, brakes, and a set of front shocks replaced once. Replaced the battery and, of course, have had regular service to nurture the drivetrain with clean oil, filters, and other fluids. Oh, and the 6-disc CD changer (thoughtfully installed at the factory in the console between the driver’s and front passenger’s seat – novel idea!) finally quit working last fall after having been played mercilessly for 178,000 miles of pleasureful, musical driving. This big “gas hawg,” which often hauls a mountain of cycling or camping gear, gets about 18 mpg on the road at 75 mph, 15 or so around town, depending upon the stop-and-go. No VW economy on this one, but I don’t feel particularly ozone-layer-destructive, since I now put about 4,000 miles a year on it. And this truck offers great road visibility so that I can see and avoid traffic snarls and oncoming text messengers before they broadside me at an intersection.  Pretty handy, especially since auto accidents annually claim the lives of about 60 times more people than U.S. military troops killed in the entire war in Iraq. (Why is no one staging a protest?!)  Not to mention physical comfort.  Not luxury, but comfort.

Roll in the Beamer 528i, please Vana, and let’s take a look!  My wife’s car is NEWER than my Ford and has a third FEWER miles.  But it’s engineered to last and provide driving euphoria, right?  (I won’t digress here about the seats being so low that I struggle to haul my skinny butt out of one, to exit the car, what with my knees higher off the ground than said butt!)  Starting in the passenger compartment, the CD changer had expired before we bought the car used, so the previous owner (widely known as a fastidious engineer type who’s religious about maintenance protocols) had installed a Pioneer after-market CD player – in the trunk!  Where the original was – how handy!  I can just see a dad driving his teen daughter to a sleepover in his fine BMW and she objects strenuously to his boring music. “OK, sweetie, just hop out – in the rain – and change the CDs. I’ll pop open the trunk.”  Eyeroll.  “Dad!!!”  Big sigh.

Well, the after-market CD changer not only died soon after we purchased the beast, but it wrought sporadic (aka unpredictable) and sudden, rapid exhaustion of the car’s battery at the most inconvenient times and inaccessible places — a peculiar idiosyncracy that no mechanic seemed able to ferret out with the most sophisticated computer diagnostics.  But I can tell you that accessing a “down” car and hooking up jumper cables in a tight, multi-floor, pay-in and pay-out parking garage is not my idea of fun.  Not even if it’s to rescue Mama.  After several iterations of this exercise – not the kind that improves cardio-vascular functioning – I was told I should “probably remove the after-market CD changer because we’ve heard that BMWs and Audis have sometimes manifested this issue.”  Don’t you just love techie talk?!  Not to mention that the Beamer’s fuel mileage is no better than my Ford’s although it’s half the size and half as comfortable.

“We” have owned the BMW for just over a year.  We’ve replaced the alternator twice, almost all the exterior light bulbs and a handsome little sensor (as in, $680 US) of some sort that resides in a wheel well (only slightly less convenient than the trunk-installed CD changer) to enable and regulate, among other things, some of the instrument panel functions AND the anti-lock brake system – hence, not an optional fix. And our BMW is back in the shop today after being towed because, as my wife and I motored home at 35 mph on a busy city street, this German “ultimate driving machine” suddenly started wailing like a banshee.  Nearby pedestrians and other motorists must have incurred whiplash injuries from straining to see what in hell was happening and how soon they were gonna die!  I wonder when a plaintiff’s lawyer in going to call me seeking recompense for his clients’ damages, pain and suffering.

A phone call just told me the repairs to the brake system will run just over $1,600.  I love this BMW, this engineering marvel!

Well, the good news is, there is more German precision engineering to be had out there — at a considerably higher entry fee, of course (MSRP: $366,000 + Destination Fee: $2,750 for the 2010 Mercedes Maybach).  Mercedes-Benz’s recent ads say it so eloquently, so simply: “Something more.”  What?  The price?  Afraid to find out – and suspecting I already know the answer (since today’s tow truck operator said he hauls “far more Mercedes than BMWs”) –  I look sideways at the highbrow Mercedes.  Think I’ll be staying with my old Ford.  If I trade up, it’s to Japanese technology.  German superior engineering?  Nein danke!  Nicht!

Carpe diem. Vita brevis!

© Michael Stubblefield, Jan. 13, 2011.  All rights reserved.

No Dogs Allowed

Exclusions abound in this world.  Consider the dog, a creature often excluded from the affairs of man.  They wait, tied outside, while their owners buy coffee, sit and read books, shop, etc.  Dogs are often associated in speech with disrespect (whether accurately or not) , as in “I’ve been working like a dog,” “He treats me like a dog,” or “The world is going to the dogs.”  Even though they enjoy a great deal more affection and attention from owners these days, they are still creatures of comparatively low station – perhaps moreso because they often cower before humans – that are only occasionally honored for utilitarian value. This is so even though some of the dogs I’ve seen do credit to their masters.  As Mark Twain said, “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” Judging by the sign at right, dogs may be smarter, too!

Speaking of dogs — have you ever had someone say, “We can talk about that if you’ll agree not to get emotional” (or more precisely, “all” emotional)?  Talk about an exclusionary structure!  Emotions are the dogs of human discourse.  “You can come in, but don’t bring that dog (your emotions)!”  Think about how many times that restriction is applied to the affairs of everyday life.  About the only place “getting all emotional” receives any respect is in the shrink’s office.  Oh, and in the sports arena.

Consider whether perhaps there’s some reparation and repatriation due the outcast of human conversation known as emotions.

* * *

I reconnected with an old friend the other day, one I hadn’t heard from in several years.  As is often the case, distance and life’s circumstances had broken the bond of commonality.  In earlier times, our friendship involved frequent and serious discussions held in good faith about a lot of life’s issues – politics, economics, education, children, church and religion in general, science, etc., — and often they went on for hours in generally healthy directions, incorporated a great deal of agreement or concurrence, involved sporadic rabbit trails, and sometimes got really earnest.  To my recollection, there was never anger, even in the midst of disagreement.  But now I wonder.

Our recent resumption of dialog began with random possibilities for conversation when the following add-on suddenly lurched to the top: “… that is, if we promise to discuss it without emotion ….”  His comment hung like the poised blade of a guillotine, ready to terminate our exchange. I restrained the immediate impulse to ask, “Why did you say that? Is there something more you wish to say, or is this merely an arbitrary prohibition?”  More to the point: “What is wrong with emotions?”

But his statement seemed determined – his underlying implication being that “emotions” have no valid place in human discourse.  That’s often the case with conversation, isn’t it?  People want to banish or exclude emotion and will often describe third parties as “too emotional,” especially when they disagree.  Emotional expression, other than saying something acceptably funny, is often the conversational equivalent of disclosing a deadly disease, as hilariously lampooned in Gary Larson’s The Far Side cartoon entitled “Canine Faux Pas.”  Larson’s cartoon shows a bunch of upright dogs at a party, all with drinks in their hands and — all but one — shocked looks on their faces, when the one shouts to another over the noise of the party, something like, “My vet told me today I have worms!”  A sure turn-off, the canine equivalent of HIV.

In human conversations, the “emotional” tag  is inextricably tied to “reaction,” and that perception strengthens with every repetition like a snowball gaining mass as it rolls downhill.  We want to kick emotions out the door as quickly as possible.  Reactions are seldom welcome, unless in response to a physical emergency, at which point they are not only welcomed but encouraged.  Otherwise, though, you can check ‘em at the door because they are second-class citizens, the stuff of unsophisticated harshness, raw, unpolished society, the “lower classes.”  Even when someone asks you for your reaction, as in “What’s your reaction to today’s news that …?”  If you give them something they weren’t expecting, you may get blamed with “overreacting” or “getting all emotional” even if your response was measured and calm.  Why?  Is it, perhaps, because we fear that we’ll be touched by the emotion, don’t know how to cope with it appropriately, or will be unable to defend against it?

What responses fall within the definition of “emotional”? And what emotions, if any, are acceptable in culture?  Easy ones come to mind.  While it’s perfectly acceptable to cry at a wedding or funeral, an award ceremony, or upon receipt of sad news, it’s far less acceptable to cry when someone makes a snide remark to you, when your boss or spouse is unnecessarily blunt.  Likewise, it’s perfectly acceptable to yell things, even stupid things, at a sporting event, but not so where a disagreement arises, even though both are expressions of emotions and may convey no more than the speaker’s passion on a certain issue. One just “should not yell” when in conversation; the unspoken assumption is that one must be contained at all times.

But passions [here, not to be confused with a romantic or sexual context] and emotions are sometimes not so easily identified or separated, and neither should be dismissed out of hand as being inherently disqualified.  After all, we want our employees, board members, players and coaches, students, et al., to be passionate about our team, our products and services, our organization, our accomplishments, etc., but when it comes to passionate expressions in the discussion, it’s usually “Katy, bar the door!”  Why are we so eternally ill-at-ease with another’s emotions and passions? Are the two related?  Can one be distinguished from the other in the midst of conversation, and if so, how?  Are we reasonable in expecting others to abide by the arbitrary fiat that an emotional or passionate tone is not allowed into civilized conversation?  Can one have her/his say without being preempted or prohibited for bringing an important human element to the conversation, that of emotion or passion?  Don’t we all come packaged or hard-wired with emotions that, to varying degrees and according to our personalities, convey something important about who we are, how we feel, and what we stand for?

Some of the most articulate and memorable quotes down through history have been passionate, emotional statements. Look at Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!”; Nathan Hale’s “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country!”; Abraham Lincoln’s immortal Gettysburg Address, about two minutes in length.  All are laced with raw emotion formed in the crucible of war or the contemplation of it, all three statements issued by sane men and calculated to instill courage in the listener, or at least express the urgency of the moment.  When Admiral Farragut yelled “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” as his fleet momentarily flinched in the face of mortal danger upon sailing into Mobile Bay in 1864, he issued a stirring call to action.  Would you remember it – more important, would his men have appropriately acted – had he calmly said, “You know, I’ve been thinking that perhaps we should not worry so much about the torpedoes and just keep forging ahead”?  Of course not!  Totally inane, and insane, bereft of any power.

Our ability to communicate – whether expressed in words, gestures, art or music – often embodies the need to express powerful, eloquent and important messages that can penetrate the very essence of the moment.  Emotions and passion are able to cut through the fog and get down to reality, reducing much fumbling verbiage to a few concise words or phrases that pierce the veil.  We need not fear, and ought not forbid, expressions of emotion and passion when used within reasonable constraints and amenable circumstances.  Once we overcome the knee-jerk wish to suppress them, we often are able to learn, to hear, to feel, to respond and even to sympathize or empathize with the feelings of urgency, hurt, anger, despair, jubilation, inspiration, admonition, or encouragement we hear.  Instead of denying the privilege, we should embrace and extend openness to the expression of raw emotion — one of the great gifts of human creativity.

Carpe diem. Vita brevis!

©  September, 2010, by Michael E. Stubblefield.  All rights reserved.

Trufe

TRUFE

Folks of’en say dey wants de trufe,
“Profits be hanged,” dey add.
“If he cain’t stand de trufe at last,
Well, that’s jes too damn bad!”

“Ah, de trufe,” you say, “de trufe
Will near-always win out.”
But way I sees it, it’s a tighter race.
I jes cain’t hep but doubt.

Ain’ no one got a-holta trufe
Near like dey thank dey do.
Fo’ ef a man gits holdin’ on trufe,
“Now, he jes ain’ gon’ do!”

“Know whut I mean?” I’s askin’ now,
An’ I sho’ly thank ya do.
‘Cause I know it done happen to me one time,
An’ I bet it done happen to you!

“Trufe,” dey say, “it’s time fo’ de trufe
Or we jes gon’ be bust!”
But what start out as de trufe, it seem,
Somehow wind up lookin’ like lust.

“De trufe gon’ come out at last, now,
An’ you jes gotta trust.”
But what start out as de trufe, it seem,
Somehow look awful like lust!
I sweah!

© September, 2010 by Michael E. Stubblefield. All rights reserved.

Carpe diem. Vita brevis!

Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain’t lawful tender for a loaf of bread. ~Josh Billings

Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it. ~Mark Twain

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. ~Winston Churchill

Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it. ~Emily Dickinson

Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks. ~Lin Yutang

Coffee Talk: Changing Others … or self?

“I bought a decaffeinated coffee table — you can’t even see a difference.” ~ Anonymous

“A cup of coffee shared with a friend is happiness tasted and time well spent.” ~ Anonymous

Hey, let’s have a cuppa joe together … and then add some food for thought.  Okay?  It’s an absolutely gorgeous Fall mornin’ here in SoCal … if you can say we have “Fall” as a season.    “Fall” is defined in these parts as when the daytime temperature drops from 74 degrees to 70 degrees.  “Hot” is 80, “cold” is 60 — a far stretch from northern Arkansas where I spent much of my life, and where a typical year-long weather calendar will record temperatures all along the spectrum between -5 and +105.

The annual Avocado Festival is this weekend in Carpinteria, so there’ll be about 100,000 or so humans, give or take several thousand, to eat all kinds of guacamole, avocado ice cream, avocado salsa, and just about every way one can think of for eating those luscious natural fats, fiber and carbs densely packed inside that pear-shaped, pebbly skin.  In addition, there’ll be several bands of varying genres (and talent … or not) hitting their licks as the crowds stroll by or sit to watch, and tons of tent merchants hawking their crafts and other treasures.  A festive atmosphere and definitely good for the local economy.

So how’s your coffee?  Mine’s just what I need right along with your conversation.  (Sorry, but I’ve already had my blueberry walnut oat bar. I waited … 30 seconds … but when you didn’t show right away, I went ahead).  So here’s the second course in our food for thought :

When one spends most of his time trying to change someone else, the more probable result is that he will change himself by overlooking the greater gift of his own unique, God-given mission in life.  Can it be that changing another is never one’s God-given mission?

Ever notice how effective the political, religious, or philosophical argument is?  How many times have you ever heard one opponent in such a debate turn and say to the antagonist, “You know, you’ve got a point there.  I think you’re right.  By golly, you’ve absolutely convinced me!  Thank you so much!  I say let’s do it [or have it] your way”?  Or how many times have you known such opponents to come back to each other, even later, and one ‘fess up to the other that he was wrong all along?

Have you ever even heard one witness of such a debate turn to another listener and make a similar confession?  I’ll lay odds you’ve NEVER witnessed such an event of either stripe.  Why?  Because of the innate attributes of humans, the most congenital seems to be our common, knee-jerk resistance to acknowledging, admitting or being told we could be in error.  And if that’s the case, why do we waste so much time, worldwide, trying to change others by arguing the error of their ways?  Wouldn’t we be much better off if we just let them have/be their way, spending the majority of our own effort being or becoming who we’re destined to be?  Would that be the better test of our beliefs and convictions?  Do you believe in such a destiny?

What I’m clumsily trying to ask is whether we wouldn’t have a lot more peace and success in life if we really focused on who we are within ourselves, rather than trying to change what someone else is or seems to be?  After all, the only things we really KNOW about someone — anyone, — are those bits of knowledge that come to us directly through our own filters or, alternatively, that come to us through the filters of third parties.

Right away, we can discuss some of the permutations of this thesis; e.g., whether we should apply this across governmental and political organizations, business entities, churches, schools, — or just at home.

What do you think?  What’s your pleasure on this topic?  Care to kick it around a bit just for the sake of mutual discovery?

While you think about it, here’s another — are you ready for this? — another one of those songs that pops in my mind.  Maybe its words will be as stimulating as the coffee.

“The Preachin’ Is Easy”

From Brian Duncan’s The Last Time I Was Here CD

We met on the high road,

At a glance both lookin’ bright and shiny-clean,

In that seamless perfection from the neighbors or the ad in a magazine.

But then one slip is all it takes,

The earth is not too far away.

My friend is calling out from the peaks above,

While I’m laid out on the fertile plain.

Talkin’ to me now, saying,

“Can’t get around, you can’t get around the slippery things in life.”

Now that’s technically correct.

The preachin’ is easy, you’d better believe it!

Talkin’ is cheap in my book, help me up if you’ve read it.

I’m under pressure, under pressure, crazy pressure now makes you wanta quit.

Back on the high side, a little worse for the wear, but I’m truly tryin’.

And I’m now more forgivin’,

‘Cause I know how it feels, know what it’s like.

“Can’t get around, and you can’t get around the slippery things in life.”

Preachin’ is easy, baby, you’d better believe it!

Talkin’ to me like it’s nothin’, well talkin’ is cheap in my book,

Look me up when you’ve read it.

Under pressure, I’m under pressure.

Try walkin’ a straight line, even while you’re looking up the whole time.

There’re so many steps in the right direction,

Say you’re gonna miss one sometimes.

“You shoulda planned ahead, you shoulda turned around,

“You shoulda seen the light.”

The preachin’ is easy, you’d better believe it!

Talkin’ to me now, I say “Talking is cheap in my book,

Wake me up when you’ve read it.”

Nah, nah, nah, nah-nah.

Nah, nah, nah, nah-nah.

Nah, nah, nah, nah-nah.
I hope to hear from you on this.  I hope the coffee kicks in.

Carpe diem.  Vita brevis!

Michael

© Oct. 2009 by Michael E. Stubblefield – all rights reserved

Monday Musings: Let’s “Man Up!”

Well, as I suggested yesterday in the context of Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues, on to “Charlies” of humbler means than the corrupt Rep. Charles Rangel of New York.  But Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues should not be totally lost on us without effect. While I think it really is a lighthearted little ditty in which a man realizes and talks about his own shortcomings, it’s not quite that simple.  In a backhanded way, he arrives at personal acknowledgment of forehanded, direct-approach shortcomings that are now depriving him of family and friends — a decidedly more honest approach than Rangel’s example.

I often loathe politicians, especially these days. Influenced by the negative news that abounds every day of the week, it’s easy to think of politicians as bottom feeders — and you can take that just about any way you want. The view I prefer — though find it hard — to concentrate on is the historical fact that the United States has, more often than not, risen above its national leadership even through the worst of times. I hope we’re heading in that direction again these days. One thing for sure — we’re in a mell of a hess right now. But the “real deal” is not an eye singly focused on the horrendous ineptitude, dishonesty, disgrace and downright corruption of national politics, but to focus on our lives and the lives of those around us.

Life’s tough, tougher for some. Even if there were no Barack Hussein Obama II or George W. Bush, no Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid or Newt Gingrich or Dick Cheney and swindlers like Charlie Rangel and the Right Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, life would still be tough, tougher for some. We’ve all known people who seem to fit the somewhat humorous (except for those who fit it) old saw, “I live on Tough Street; the further you go, the tougher it gets. And I live in the last house.”  What makes it that way? What gives “Good Time Charlie” the blues?

Talking to a guy at work today. He’s struggling to make ends meet with inflated payments on a deflated house in Southern California. Has a newer car on which he makes payments for another 3 years and can’t sell for half what he paid for it, and a wife and three kids who live in the house with him. The kids attend class in schools increasingly plagued by disorder, lack of funds (amazing, isn’t it, in this nation where we spend HUGE amounts of money to “educate” kids, then spend most of every school year teaching them merely how to pass a single, state-mandated proficiency exam so that the lawmakers and teachers can feel good about themselves, and incidentally about the students, for another year?!), and — yep, undereducated kids. Back in the day, we had to learn all the material and pass numerous tests all through the school year. If we didn’t, somebody — likely, multiple personalities including teachers, principal, and parents — would be on us like a chicken on a June bug, and we’d be read the riot act, assigned extra chores, required to stay after school to clean the blackboards (No! Not ‘chalkboards’ — blackboards!), and then get our hinies whacked when we got home. Perhaps get grounded or restricted for a while at home, too. Required to do homework. (Those were early, feudal efforts at instilling “self esteem.”)

But I digress.  My subject was the Charlies of our world. Because his employer is experiencing declining demand for his goods and services with concurrently-increasing costs of doing business (wait until the “new” taxes of the next decade hit!), there will be no wage increases or bonuses even though Charlie’s costs of living are as voracious as ever. His kids need braces, soccer shoes and school togs, his older car needs some repairs, and he needs to replace a hot water heater and a dishwasher. Where’s he to turn? Is the federal government really handing out money? Where can I find some?

Talking to a gal at the coffee shop today, similar story, maybe worse. Let’s call her Charlene.  She’s a single parent of a child whose deadbeat dad won’t pay child support (never has) because he’s “unemployed” and seems to make a career of it. He never visits his child or takes him anywhere, but this gal can’t leave the state of California because the law says she has to make her child available for “regular visitation” with his daddy who … well, I already said that. If she wants to terminate visitation rights based on his history, she has the burden of proof (if she can afford a lawyer and time off work to go to court several times where she may, or may not, get the relief she seeks) to show that the father no longer merits visitation. It’s a difficult burden of proof that few can meet. This woman is talented and intelligent in her job, attends night school to get a degree in accounting to improve herself and the chances of her child, and is underpaid at work. Her employer, taking recognition that lots of people are out of work and looking for jobs, keeps wages artificially low as compared with prosperous times. All of this, still ignoring the obvious bungling and corruption we see from inside the Beltway in D.C. that has been rampant for years. But now, our chickens are coming home to roost. We are paying for our national apathy and concurrent, personal greed. In spades.

But still, all in all and even with the struggles and catastrophes we see around and hear more about, especially from the politicians who are so “concerned about the poor and homeless, the uninsured and the desperate” and the media who feed the insatiable “news” monster with their blind reports that all say the same thing and ignore the obvious, I contend that the overwhelming majority of us are far better off than our predecessors.  Talk about tough economic times! Read a little history about the Great Depression (as compared with this current economy that has not and, some say will not, produce the predicted dire tragedies from which we’re nonetheless insistently — and with increasing belligerence — being rescued by our omnipotent Big Bro and his Czars of Everything) and you’ll at once have to confess that we’re materially better off.  We have a far higher standard of living than most of the world.  We have lots of discretionary spending money to blow on all kinds of expensive entertainments that have become an everyday way of life.  Have you ever considered that athletes and Hollywood stars are among the most highly-paid persons in the U.S.?  And there is a current glut of “hero” athletes and “hero” Hollywooders, lots of the latter with o’erweening pronouncements and attitudes about how “we” ought to live and think.  Have you noticed the number of grossly-obese people walking around?  Have you seen the hordes of high school kids who pile into a Starbucks before school every day to get their venti double-fat mocha-frappa yada-yadas with piles of whipped cream on top, something to suck down into their fat little bellies for morning treats on the way to school?  Have you noted the increasing number of obese SMALL children who clearly rarely get off their backsides to play?  Are we spoiled and lazy?  I mean, I like my daily small double cappuccino, but this is ridiculous!

Former generations, not only in the U.S., but even moreso around the world, have known pain and suffering the likes of which I pray we never see. Think of all the horrible drug wars, civil wars, regional wars — and even the ethnic cleansings that have plagued the world in the last 30-50 years (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Angola, Somalia, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Chechnya, Afghanistan, and surely at least one South American nation), and our momentary “suffering” seems light and endurable.  Not to mention the 55,000,000 – 70,000,000 estimated to have died in the Second World War, or the 13,000,000 or so killed in Russia by Josef Stalin after that war.  Cruel, harsh, bone-grinding work and starvation, then death by freezing, disease, and total misery.  And a few “people” have the temerity to assert that the Holocaust never happened?!!

Note I said a few lines back that we’re materially better off. I’m not sure about other qualities of life, such as cultural sanity and spiritual health. But we still have a fighting chance to turn things around for ourselves if we’ll “man up,” take responsibility for our own lives instead of looking to Wall Street, the dollar bill and Congress with its window dressing of “improved national health care for less money” and coming prosperity for all of us.  We need to get about the business of righting the most glaring wrongs and rebuilding, from the ground up, this system that has gone awry (not that it’s done so on its own). Think we can do it? We’ve done it before!

Consider, for example, the presidency of U.S. Grant, eighteenth president of the United States. He apparently arrived in that office primarily by being successful general-in-chief of the Union Army in the last year of the Civil War (or “War of Northern Aggression” as it has been called by some die-hard Southerners). The first mistake was thus made.  The nation seized on the military leadership, which it mistook for civil leadership, and wound up with one of the most corrupt presidential terms in our nation’s history.  His cabinet and nepotism were second to none in terms of scandal and disgrace, and many of the nation’s business and industrial leaders were equally or more corrupt.  Read about Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed, and many others of that era.  And aren’t we proud that Grant was the first to propose a professional federal civil service?!  Thanks, General!

Well, our ancestors survived Grant’s corruption, just like a later generation survived the Great Depression of the twentieth century and the misguided efforts of Franklin D. Roosevelt, that great “visionary” president who rescued us by putting a chicken in every pot, a dollar in every pocket, and stretched the detrimental effects of the Great Depression into a decade of simultaneous deprivation and government overreaching that was in many ways unnecessarily more harm than good.  He and his Washington experts were allowed to do so by a citizenry caught in grinding poverty and hopelessness and looking to government largesse (as though money does grow on trees, just below the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings, in the big rock candy mountain) to bale it out of trouble — not recognizing that the trade-off was sacrifice of a lot of freedom and self-determination as the national government built its cadres of career bureaucrats.  Sound familiar?  And yet different?  Here’s just one brief description of that 1930s New Deal [read, "change we can live with"]:

Despite all the positives of the New Deal, and there were many, Depression-era tax policies had the unintended consequence of creating a “risk-less economy.” A string of tax hikes and new taxes extinguished the nation’s sparks of innovation.

On top of the Revenue Act of 1932—one of the largest tax increases in American history, which doubled the estate tax, increased corporate taxes by almost 15 percent, and raised taxes on the highest incomes from 25 percent to 63 percent—the Revenue Act of 1935 raised new taxes on higher income levels, corporations, and estates. The Revenue Act of 1937 taxed short-term capital gains as ordinary income. And in 1936, Roosevelt added a higher top rate of 79 percent on individual income greater than $5 million—a rate that was increased again in 1939.

By 1937, the undistributed profits surtax severely restricted the ability of small companies to build up their capital out of earnings, and the large surtax on individual incomes discouraged rich people from investing in new companies.

Spencer Ante, “Slouching Through the Great Depression.”

Yet, by comparison to world suffering, in 2009 we’re merely a collective “Good Time Charlie [Who's] Got the Blues.” Time to “man up!”

Carpe diem.  Vita brevis!

Michael

© September 2009, Michael E. Stubblefield.  All rights reserved.

Saturday: Signs of the Times

What?

Signs of the times are everywhere.  Most of them are so boring that after a while I quit even noticing them — the boredom of familiarity bred by overexposure.  Nobody much wants anything that’s overcooked, whether it’s a steak, a politician’s message, a sales pitch, or a 15-inning no-run baseball game.  It’s partly this public boredom that keeps ad people in business — too much of a good thing is not a good thing.

Other signs are boring from the “git-go” because they’re unattractive,  or maybe they’re offensive, carry a message or draw attention to something we’re not interested in, are made with the wrong colors, the wrong fonts, the wrong arrangement or some other flaw that just bothers us for reasons beyond our own finite ability to elucidate — even if we’re highly educated.  As the US Supreme Court’s Justice Lewis Powell once said in a decision, “I cannot define obscenity, but I know it when I see it.”

Signs that are in this group may include an emerging social trend that just gets off all wrong with us.   We say to ourselves (or to others), “This is a bad sign.  This is not gonna work.  We’re goin’ from bad to worse.”  For example, that’s the way I sometimes respond, at least internally, to the current trendy sign of people with way too much flesh exposed by their clothing choices.  I feel like I’m seeing something akin to a can of biscuits that has popped open and is running over the edges — it’s not what I want to see.  Know what I’m talkin’ ’bout?  I’m not talking about morality here, I’m talking about distraction of an ilk that can cause other problems, like running into other signs.  It just gets to be too much of a good thing (like I already said).

But every now and again, if I’m in the right mood or on my game, I’ll spot a sign that raises my interest.  And sometimes even less frequently, one grabs my attention for reasons having little to do with my susceptibilities to its message, product, layout, color scheme, social trend or cleverness.  Take the sign above, for instance.  Do you wonder exactly what the sign’s maker had in mind?  What s/he was attempting to say?  I do.  Beyond the obviously unattractive terseness, layout, colors and partial defacement, I’m unsure about the intent of the message, which is helped only a little by knowing — as I do — that it’s in front of a driveway into an elementary school’s parking lot.  I can bring students, but I can’t drop them off?  Why bother to bring them?  Think I just wanna drive through the parking lot with them?  Is that supposed to be fun?  Am I not here to get rid of them for the day?  Or does the sign refer to the fact that there is no “student drop-off” (as opposed to a student drop off –what’s that?  A chasm that will swallow the poor kiddies as soon as they alight from my car?)  I need some clarification.  Or at least some testing of the sign’s content against proper spelling/punctuation/usage rules.  Hmmm, another sign of the times?

And then look at this sign from the same parking lot, within 25 feet of the first one.  Why didn’t they use the same wording, just dropping the “No”?  This is absolutely crazy!  I can’t drop off my kids (presumably they’re the students, right?), but they can drop me off  there?!  This is weird! Who’s going to drop off their parents?  (Where was this sign when I was a kid?  I might’ve dropped off mine — at least for a day!)  But really now, think about this: Elementary students are going to drive up to the elementary school and drop off their parents?  If I were a California lawyer, I’d be hanging out at that parking lot to pick up a handy personal injury lawsuit or two.  Negligent parents letting their students drive them to school, where the parents are dropped off (or step into the drop-off) while the kids go joy-riding for the day?  And then they’ve gotta come back and pick the parents up — that’s what the sign says.  But notice the inconsistency between “drop off” and “pick-up.” The sign maker apparently was beginning to think about the situation with the sign’s message, but was unsure of “no hyphen” or “yes hyphen,” so did one each way.  Now that’s enlightening!  Maybe someone should apply a common-sense axiom at this point:  “Problems cannot be solved by the level of awareness that created them.” — Albert Einstein

Okay, enough about school ignorance (Does something seem inherently wrong about that?).  Here are two of my favorite signs from my cross-country bike ride back in 2004. 

This is no joke, folks.  A road sign in remote southwest Arizona.  I happen to be from Arkansas and know there’s a small municipality there named Hope.  Remember William Jefferson Clinton?  Remember Mike Huckabee?  But the sign above referred — or so I thought, at the time — to a small town as I rode eastward through a scorching, table-top-flat desert between Quartzite and Wickenburg, Arizona along US Highway 60 near its intersection with State Road 72.  Strangest thing, though, was that a town never appeared.*  I just saw the road sign on the left that indicated Hope, then a mile or so later the sign on the right indicating I was “now beyond Hope.”  For a fleeting second I began to feel that way, until I realized I could move on down the road and not get stuck there for the rest of my life — beyond hope. In the background you can see the Little Harquahala Mountains — and a whole lot of sand, ocotillo, cacti and brush.  In the foreground is Yours Truly, decked out in riding togs including mesh helmet cover with rear neck protector (no, that’s not my flowing white hair!) to keep my neck from burning and drying to leather under the relentless sun.  But Hope had no entertainment to speak of either, beyond the natural beauty of the scenery.  I rode through such towns as Brenda, Harcuvar, Salome, Wenden and Aguila (“Eagle”) before reaching Wickenburg.  Do any of those places sound like jumping tourist havens?  Not!

Another puzzling sign from the same trip:  What kind of church would necessitate a highway sign like this one in the Sam Houston National Forest of east Texas?  This was a small county road with almost no auto traffic.  The sign tickled my funny-bone at the time, and having nothing else to do as I pedaled my loaded bike along, I mused about the sign’s possible implications for many miles more than it was probably worth.  Came up with some amusing theories, none of which really bear repeating — unless you’re reading this on a very long bike ride or as an antidote for sleeplessness.  Give me a call if you really want to know more.

A church in Louisiana had the following on its marquee:

I got a little serious about that sign; kept analyzing it as I rode, wondering what motivated its author to make such a statement; whether the statement was true or false, useful or not, and how I could prove either proposition.  One of the points I did conclude was that it’s this kind of philosophy or statement that sometimes causes non-church people (or even those who are of faith) to get upset or frustrated with the Christians who post such signs.  Maybe the creator of the message intended it as some sort of backhanded or subtle way of inspiring hope.  But maybe not.  We cannot know.  I recommend being more careful — and precise — with words.

Finally, I leave you with this sign.  Another in my portfolio of shots from the ’04 cross-continent bicycle trek.  This one stands for several propositions — or raises several questions — in my mind. Broken dreams? Failed ambitions? People don’t always keep their promises?  The fragility and tragedy of life?  Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see?  Things are not always as they appear?   Poor planning?  Forgetting the essentials?  The best-laid plans of mice and men …

Carpe diem. Vita brevis!

Michael

*  And sure enough, if you go to an internet map of Arizona and drill down on the highway intersection I’ve cited, you’ll see “Hope,” but no town.   It’s just an area on the map.  And having ridden through there on a bicycle (I think it would seem similar in a car), I don’t see much that’s hopeful about it — unless you think to yourself, “I hope there’s something up ahead!” 

©Aug. 15, 2009 by Michael E. Stubblefield – all rights reserved